io THE CORAL LANDS OF THE PACIFIC. 



How often in my Pacific wanderings, with particularly un- 

 certain communications, have I not longed for the luxury of 

 that feeble little steamship, the Star of the South ! She boasted 

 a tonnage of 175, with a nominal and delightfully uncertain 

 horse-power of 45. 



My Fiji-bound fellow-passengers insisted on my tasting 

 ' Fiji cider,' which a native had brought off with him. They 

 stood by me while I drank/ and then asked how I relished it. 

 I replied diffidently that I had no doubt Fiji cider was an 

 acquired taste, but to me it seemed a curious compound of 

 soapsuds and salt. 



Dr. Brower gave a hearty laugh, and said I was not far 

 out in my opinion of angona. I shall have something more 

 to say about this beverage by-and-by. 



The passengers for Fiji having safely reached the Levuka 

 ' mail-boat,' the City of Sydney steamed majestically away for 

 the port of her name. The Australia soon followed suit for 

 Auckland ; while the engineer of the Star of the South boarded 

 H.M.S. Nymphe, apparently to request the loan of a little coal 

 to take us and Her Majesty's mails to Levuka distant some 

 ninety miles. He was gone a considerable time, and it was 

 long past noon before we headed our ship for the capital of Fiji. 



We had a favourable passage, though accompanied by a 

 good deal of drenching tropical rain. "We were a representa- 

 tive crowd, the travellers who had come vid 'Frisco being 

 largely augmented by Fiji residents, and others who had 

 been stopping in the 'colonies,' as the various provinces of 

 Australia and New Zealand are called in Fiji and the adja- 

 cent groups. There was the Governor's secretary, Mr. Arthur 

 Gordon, who so well earned his C.M.G. for the services he 

 rendered the Government in the suppression of the cannibal 

 outbreak of 1876. There were also Mr. Liardet, R.N., He 



